Everyone Draw Mohammed Day Creator Molly Norris Goes Into Hiding

Molly Norris, the cartoonist who created Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as a joke, has now gone into hiding because American-born, Yemen-based imam Anwar al-Awlaki has put a fatwa on her head. As the WSJ asks: Where’s Obama standing up for her First Amendment rights?

In other news, award-winning science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon has enraged some of the usual suspects (including one deploying the classic “but-but-but Pope Alexander II” fallacy) by pointing out that modern Islam has some problems as part of a larger essay on citizenship, with which there is much to agree. (I do take exception to her passing comments about “Libertarians, survivalists, Tea-Partyers” being people whose “whose goals benefit only their own group;” as smaller government and lower budget deficits are indeed goals that would benefit United States citizens as a whole. And survivalists need only bring up Katrina, Ike, etc., to point out that people with sources of functional food, communication, transportation, etc., in an emergency greatly benefit the community as a whole as well.) I thought about posting this on my non-political blog, where I cover a lot of science fiction topics, but thought it fit in better over here.

At some point in the future, I hope to touch on the topic of why Islamists have become the most sacred group in the American Far-Left Pantheon of Victimization (perhaps one could ask Lynne F. Stewart, assuming you could contact her during visiting hours while serving her 10-year sentence for aiding and abetting terrorists), but this post is already long enough as is…

(BTW, I have some of Elizabeth’s books for sale over on at Lame Excuse Books for those of you who read science fiction.)

That there are 10 time more antisemitic hate crimes than anti-muslim hate crimes is likely to mean more people hate Jews than Muslims. It does not imply in any way that the people committing these antisemitic crimes are Muslim, nor does it mean that the people committing antimuslim hate crimes are Jews.

So, there are more anti-Semitic crimes in the US than anti-Islamic. Is this a hate competition? Does the one thing justify the other? NO hate crime or hate speech is justifiable.

It’s neither just nor rational to take out our fear and loathing on ALL Muslims and Islam as a faith because some people believing themselves to be good Muslims commit violent acts. Those very acts and attitudes are, in reality, a rejection of the faith they claim to follow. Shall we blame all atheists for the atrocities committed by dictators like Joe Stalin? Shall we blame all Christians for the slaughter of Native Americans and the forced “re-education” of their children?

Mainstream Muslim organizations all over the world have been rising up against this violent sub-culture since before 9/11. Right after that tragedy there was a huge conclave of Muslim leaders (5,000 strong) that issued a call for peace and that denounced the terrorists and their attitudes and actions. Only one news organ covered it: the BBC. This sort of anti-violence activity is ongoing. I know because I’m involved in an interfaith group with two Muslim members who are engaged with these global organizations and I see their efforts personally.

Do you know why you don’t hear about this backlash within the Muslim community? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T SELL AD SPACE AND NEWSPAPERS. (Well, okay, nothing sells newspaper these days, but you get my point.) Peace and love and goodwill toward our fellow man isn’t sexy enough to air. It doesn’t get people excited. It doesn’t raise ratings or feed the bottom line.

I don’t support what the Wiscon concom did, but allowing their actions to stir up further resentment against Muslims and Islam does no service to Elizabeth or to anyone else. Continued hatred solves no problems; it only creates more and the Qur’an, no less than any other sacred text tells us that.

We need to work together against ALL hate crime and all hate speech no matter who it’s aimed at. The scriptures of my faith make this point emphatically: “love is light, no matter in what abode it dwelleth; and hate is darkness, no matter where it may make its nest.”